Marin Cilic just barely eclipsed Andy Murray’s record of the longest gap between Challenger titles, triumphing at this level again for the first time since 2007 Rijeka. Vit Kopriva took down top-seeded Luciano Darderi in an excellent final in Naples and is closing in on a Top 100 debut, while Emilio Nava went back-to-back in South America with 10 wins in a row. Read up on last week’s action:
Morelia
James Duckworth had only played one Challenger this season before Morelia with an opening round loss to Jacob Fearnley in Phoenix. Top-seeded this week, he enjoyed a pretty comfortable run to the semifinals with no opponents ranked in the Top 400 before neutralizing the big serve of Beibit Zhukayev in the final four. Duckworth saved all four break points faced in that matchup and made it to his first Challenger final since winning Hangzhou in October.
Dmitry Popko was 5-10 for the year coming into Morelia with only a couple of Challenger main draw wins. That’s why this run came as a surprise, particularly as unlike Duckworth he was facing Top 200 opponents practically every round. Besides a three-set opening round against Terence Atmane, he was also producing some heavy defeats over Adrian Mannarino, Thiago Agustin Tirante, and Hugo Grenier. On the way to final, he saved all nine break points faced.
Popko’s perfect week on serve didn’t last long as he got broken three times in the opening set of the final. Despite spraying every shot imaginable, he got himself together for the rest of the match and managed to instill doubt in Duckworth. The rest of the affair was much more like the entire week for the Kazakh – being a wall off the ground and using the altitude to his advantage on serve. Popko claimed his 2nd Challenger title 1-6 6-2 6-4 and secured a Top 200 return. He took a special exempt for Morelos, while Duckworth will play the ATP 250 in Houston.
Naples
Luciano Darderi had been struggling to repeat his breakthrough season from last year, losing a lot of momentum on hard courts and then not performing well in the Golden Swing either. Playing his first Challenger since Perugia in June was a natural choice to try to recapture some of that momentum. As it turned out, Darderi got back on track relatively quickly despite a 2-8 record for the season. He defeated Stan Wawrinka on the 40th birthday of the Swiss and scraped through Dalibor Svrcina 7-5 in the 3rd in the semifinals.
Vit Kopriva was the highest-ranked unseeded player in the Naples draw and was quite unlucky to have to take on No. 2 seed Raphael Collignon in the opening round. But on the other hand, defeating the Belgian meant he took over his spot in the draw and had a nice opportunity to go forward. Just like Darderi, he only dropped one set on the way to the final (against Federico Arnaboldi). On Sunday morning, he defeated Andrea Pellegrino in a rematch of the Szczecin final from September.
The pressure coming from Darderi’s serve and +1 forehand plays was even more felt on clay with the Italian just waiting around for a poor game from Kopriva. But a swing came in the second set with a 29-shot rally and from that point onwards, the player doing more damage off the ground was definitely the 27-year-old. Kopriva used his backhand dropshot beautifully and dominated the rallies with flat shots down-the-line to win his 6th Challenger title 3-6 6-3 7-6(4). He now finds himself just 16 points outside the Top 100. Both finalists will now compete at the ATP 250 in Marrakech.
Girona
Marin Cilic had only played a few matches on clay over the last few years, not picking up a single win since making the semifinals at 2022 Roland Garros. That included a disastrous start to his season in Murcia as he was dismantled by Daniel Merida Aguilar. But it only took a week for the Croat to rediscover his clay mojo, defeating the winner of the aforementioned event, Carlos Taberner, and prevailing in high-profile clashes against Marton Fucsovics or Pablo Carreno Busta.
Elmer Moller couldn’t wait for the clay season to begin and while the performances in Murcia were a little off, he was back in fantastic shape in Girona. Despite a tough opening draw against Federico Coria, the Dane started showing just why his backhand is among the best in the business. He took down Nicolai Budkov Kjaer in a Scandinavian duel worth remembering for the future and crushed Dusan Lajovic 6-2 6-1 in the semifinals, despite the veteran looking simply unplayable up until that point.
Cilic was on a streak of 17 break points saved in a row before the final and he would only further increase the streak on Sunday. Despite some obscene backhand winners in the first few games, it was Moller who fell behind and then couldn’t convert a 0-40 on return. The final call came with the 8th break point when he was trying to stay in the match, but Cilic just blasted an ace and took his 3rd Challenger title 6-3 6-4. He barely eclipsed Andy Murray’s record of the longest gap between trophies at this level, clinching his most recent one at 2007 Rijeka. Both finalists will be in Menorca this week, Moller grabbing a special exempt.
Concepcion
Nicolas Kicker had been struggling with his health in the last few years, having to take long breaks in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. This campaign has a been a bit different, even if before Concepcion he was unable to do any damage on the Challenger Tour. But this week, the former World No. 78 started from two three-set wins in the qualifying before dropping just three games combined against Adolfo Daniel Vallejo and Juan Pablo Varillas. He made it to the final via a comeback win over Matias Soto.
Emilio Nava won Asuncion the week before Concepcion and just kept rolling. In the four matches he played on the way to the final, the American never dropped more than four games in a set and was only broken once – by Genaro Alberto Olivieri when serving for the win in the semifinals. Nine wins in a row became his longest streak at the Challenger level (back in 2022 he triumphed at Shymkent-1 before losing in the semifinals of the second event at that venue).
The way that Nava was playing this week, even the 5-2 lead for Kicker in the second set didn’t feel like much. While some of the Argentinian’s traits like the court sense or work on the angles were an obstacle for him, the Asuncion champion was still firing on all cylinders and claimed his 4th Challenger title 6-1 7-6(4) to jump from 235th to 164th in the ATP Rankings over the fortnight. Kicker chose to withdraw from Campinas next week and not take a special exempt, while Nava gets some rest before returnng in the green clay swing in the States.
Challenger Tour magic:
Here’s a Wawrinka special
📷: @ATPChallenger https://t.co/FbbuFbnCfe pic.twitter.com/aWkjYeqpYX— Damian Kust (@damiankust) March 25, 2025
What an insane way for Jesper de Jong to secure his Top 100 debut, saves 3 MPs at 4-5 0-40 in the 3rd vs Ofner. Decided to try to grind the Austrian down and succeeded
#98 live, Lajovic, PCB, Tirante can pass him but the first two can’t both win Girona to do it
📷:@ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/Rk2Igzzn18— Damian Kust (@damiankust) March 28, 2025
Events held this week:
- Open Menorca (Challenger 100, clay)
- Open Citta della Disfida (Barletta, Challenger 75, clay)
- Campeonato Internacional de Tenis (Campinas, Challenger 75, clay)
- Morelos Open Presentado por Metaxchange (Challenger 75, hard)
With three ATP 250 events held the same week (Bucharest, Houston, Marrakech), there will be no Top 100 players in action.
First-round matches to watch:
Menorca
- (1) Billy Harris vs Albert Ramos-Vinolas
- Ignacio Buse vs (3) Marin Cilic
Barletta
- Andrea Pellegrino vs (4) Duje Ajdukovic
- Mili Poljicak vs (2) Gregoire Barrere
Campinas
- (4) Juan Pablo Varillas vs Juan Bautista Torres
- (6) Matias Soto vs Gonzalo Villanueva
Morelos
- (1) Thiago Agustin Tirante vs (ALT) Stefan Kozlov
- Mark Lajal vs (6) Nicolas Mejia
Main Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
